Vacation During the School Year?

[Anonymous]

10:30 again. Sorry but at our school lots of people DO do it. I know of at least 3 families who have gone to WDW this year in our grade alone. We also have a lot of children whose grandparents are overseas and when the families go, they go for 2-3 weeks. Maybe I am lucky that our principal is OK with this, but I know for a fact that MANY families at our school travel during the school year. You can do what you like for your family, this works for us. And as I said, I am sure things will change when my oldest hits middle school. But right now she is well ahead of grade level in all subjects, so seriously, a week of math instruction when she already can do algebra, I don't think is a big deal. And if she did miss something, DH and I are certainly to teach her whatever she missed.

If a child is behind, that's different. If a child needs that classtime or they would be behind, that's different. But not every kid needs to be in class every day to learn all the material. It seems as if MoCo and DCPS may be less tolerant than FCPS.

[Anonymous]

12:43 here. Yes it seems that your school, and maybe FCPS in general, is the exception in the DC area. Many private schools in the DC area also discourage this, my friends in NYC public elementries rue that they can't travel except during breaks. So, consider yourselves lucky!

[Anonymous]

I know lots of people who do it or tackon an extra week at year-end holidays.

We pulled DS out of Pre-K once for about 3 days. That did not matter much. The year DCPS changed the start date and moved it up one week, we were caught up. We had booked our vacation in March for that last week in August before school starts since the place we like to go fills up. We were really angry when they announced the change in early May. DS just missed the first week of school, but it was an excused absence. I wrote a note to the principal before summer break and asked that they tell his teacher (we didn't know yet.)

In general though, he's in school unless he's sick or it's vacation. He just missed a week with this cruddy stomach flu and and got 68 on a social studies test because he missed the whole chapter - 4th grade.

[Anonymous]

When I was in (private) high school, my mom would ask me to stay home from school to wait for the plumber/fix-it man/delivery etc. Still made it into a top school, law school and go to work pretty much every day now.

[Anonymous]

I think pulling kids out during the week of standardized testing to go to Disney World is MORE educational than sitting through tests that do no benefit to the student.

[Anonymous]

11:16 Objection! Not relevant.

[Anonymous]

I see your point 11:30 but surely there are more educational options than Disney World.

[Anonymous]

Why does a family vacation need to be educational? I take my kids to the museums all the time. I'm highly amused at how my 5 year old can hold a conversation with a gallery owner considering the compositional elements of a abstract piece. My 3 yr old is knows all the dinosaurs and which rooms they are in at Natural History. They know all the rockets at Air and Space. They can spot several constellations and have a good working idea of some basic physics and biology. We've seen butter being churned in Williamsburg. They grow an organic garden in the backyard. The kids have chinese, spanish, yoga, art, and music enrichment classes in their preschool on top of math, reading, science and geography. They have tons of educational toys and activities.

We all work hard so why can't two weeks out of the year just be about having fun with their family or visiting cousins. Why must I take them to a Bavarian castle rather than the Magic Kingdom?

[Anonymous]

"The kids have chinese, spanish, yoga, art, and music enrichment classes in their preschool on top of math, reading, science and geography."

Ok, I call BS on this. In preschool? Come on. And if true, that's just sad.

[Anonymous]

I did not grow up in the US so different set of rules, but my parents took us out of school for family trips all the time. The principal at our school always said that we would learn a lot more through traveling than we would ever do in the classroom. We would get homework ahead of time and take any tests we missed when we returned.
I don't remember much of 5th grade or 10th grade but I certainly remember the trips we took!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why does a family vacation need to be educational?

It doesn't. But if you are going to miss school for vacation, it seems like there should be more to it than going to an amusement park. Do that during spring break or the summer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I did not grow up in the US so different set of rules, but my parents took us out of school for family trips all the time. The principal at our school always said that we would learn a lot more through traveling than we would ever do in the classroom. We would get homework ahead of time and take any tests we missed when we returned.
I don't remember much of 5th grade or 10th grade but I certainly remember the trips we took!

Very well said.

Also, re: going to someplace like WDW in the school year . . eh, if it was happening all the time, that would be one thing. But, it can be crowded and very expensive to do those trips during school breaks. So, going for a week (once) doesn't bother me. They are kids. Let them be kids. They have their whole lives to live being part of "the machine."

[Anonymous]

yes, I really don't find this so shocking...now, if this is happening three times a year, a bit much or maybe even every year, a bit much, but if your sister has planned to do WDW for a while and this is "the" year, missing a week of school doesn't seem to me like such a big deal

the key really is whether the kids can handle it and get back into the swing of things when they return - I can certainly imagine wanting to pull my kids out of school once in a while for a family trip (mine are still preschool) but I won't do it if I think they will struggle when they get back

I missed school for family trips as a kid, not usually a week but a few days here and there and I don't recall any trouble at all, but I was an "A" student and motivated and so forth. It depends on the kid or kids.

[Anonymous]

The principal at our school always said that we would learn a lot more through traveling than we would ever do in the classroom.

I'm not sure I would want to send my kids to a school for which this was the case. I hear the line a lot, and it seems like a big rationalization. If you didn't have to earn a living, would you homeschool by travelling nonstop? I mean, evidently, that's more valuable than classwork.

[Anonymous]

Pulling your kids during testing week really harms the school. The school must have a very high percentage of children take the tests. And if you are the kind of family that could help bring the scores up for your school and you blow it off, that's really too bad. I'm not a huge fan of testing, but since all schools are now judged by the scores, they should be as high as possible. Your child's absence could actually keep the school from making AYP, as absurd as that seems. The school won't get the "participation" category.